Sweet Home Carolina (31 page)

His mouth closed over hers, soft and more intoxicating than
the champagne. His tongue tasted of decadently delicious chocolate. His hand
caressing her breast completed the task of arousing her from the stupor she’d
lived in for so many years. Every nerve ending awakened and sizzled with spikes
of electricity.

Amy ignored the flashing alarm signs and warning bells in
her head. She was beyond being careful any longer. Tonight was hers. This
fascinating man wanted her, and she wasn’t losing the opportunity.

She tilted her champagne glass over Zack’s chest and licked
the spilled wine from his nipple.

Had he not been sitting down, the tentative touch of Amy’s
tongue on his chest would have brought Zack to his knees.

He’d had champagne licked off him before. He’d had Jacuzzi
baths and chocolate-covered strawberries and more.

He’d never had any woman like Amy to share them with.

It wasn’t just that she was lush instead of willowy,
wholesome instead of jaded, or shy instead of bold, although all these elements
excited him with their newness and elicited conflicting needs to cuddle and
ravish her at the same time. No, it was the inner strength of the woman
emerging from her shell that fascinated and aroused him.

He tried to concentrate on the physical awareness of her
ripe breasts brushing the hairs on his chest as she leaned over him. But it was
the daring dart of her tongue across his skin that made him so hard he could
barely restrain his urge to pull her over him right then. She was doing her
best to seduce
him
. He’d stake his
fortune and his reputation that she’d never seduced another man in her life — and
the knowledge both humbled and excited him.

He caught her face between his hands and lifted her chin so
he could kiss soft chocolate-coated lips. She sent his head spinning when she
licked the juice from his mouth first.

Her tongue tasted sweeter than berries. He tried to reclaim
control of this seduction, but her kisses were as hungry as his, and they
nearly slid under the water trying to gulp each other down.

Coming up for air, he could no longer resist the soft press
of her breasts against his side. He slid his hands to cup their generous
fullness, lifting them to his lips so he could taste even more luscious
berries. He thrilled at her cry of pleasure and crushed her closer when she
grabbed his hair and held him there to taste as freely as he wished.

She was all women in one, lush goddess, nurturing mother,
intelligent partner, and he was about to explode with his need to claim her. But
he wanted this first time to be perfect.

Pleasuring her breast, he slid his arm beneath her rounded
buttocks, lifting her so his fingers could slide along her sex. Amy’s quick
inhalation and widened eyes said all he needed to know. Her fingers bit into
his shoulders as he tugged her across his lap. She didn’t resist repositioning
but kneeled over him, tentatively surrounding his sex with her palms so he thought
he might expire of need right then.

“I have waited too long for this, my Amy,” he murmured,
stroking her until she closed her eyes and hummed with pleasure. “We have all
night, but I need this now.”

She spread her legs and came down on him without question or
quarrel, smothering him in ecstasy, leaving him gasping for air. His senses
reeled with the touch, taste, and scent of warm woman in his arms, pressed into
his chest. His erection had grown so large, he feared he’d stretch her to
breaking.

He lifted her from his lap to suckle at her breasts again,
then lowered her more slowly this time, so slowly he thought he’d lose control
before she closed over him completely. He fought for restraint so he could move
within her, producing excited gasps. She moaned louder as his lips teased her
breasts and his hands guided her hips in a slow circle.

He wanted to do this all night, yet his body countered with
building urgency.

She pushed upward, almost relinquishing him, and before he
could protest, she caught his head between her hands, closed her mouth over
his, and plunged down again — while stunning him with a kiss full of
passion…and demand.

“Now, Zack,” she whispered, wrapping her legs around him in
a way he could not refuse.

Relieved of all restraint by her request, he cupped her
buttocks and pushed into her until she cried out with delight. Then he guided
her into the driving rhythm he wanted, needed, and couldn’t live without.

Once she grasped his needs and took charge of the passion
incinerating them, he hungrily leaned over to suckle her breasts. His hands
cupped her rounded hips, and he delighted in their supple movement as they
moved together farther, faster. When he knew he couldn’t restrain himself much
longer, he slid his hand between them, found the nub of her sex, and pushed her
over the edge.

Rather than cry out, she bit his shoulder. Triggered by that
erotic charge, with her climax pulsing around him, Zack simply let go, giving
himself up to the moment as if he were still a teenager in the first throes of
blind love. He thrust hard and exploded in spasm after spasm, finally attaining
the release he craved, while she clung to his neck and the warm water bubbled
around them.

“I think I’ll just slide under and drown happy,” he managed
to murmur as he wrapped her in his arms. After weeks of deprivation, he knew
all her soft curves pressed into his hardness would have him aroused and aching
again within minutes, if not seconds, but he couldn’t let her go if his life
depended on it.

“Take me with you,” she replied sleepily, brushing her mouth
against his before resting her head on his shoulder.

It wasn’t until he’d nestled her tenderly against his chest
that he realized what he’d done. By throwing away all his practiced maneuvers,
he’d forgotten protection. He never did that.

The memory lapse was too Freudian to consider. He couldn’t
marry and have children with a woman like Amy. The match would be worse than
the one between his mother and father. They would have to live on different
continents and kill each other by phone.

He didn’t want to argue with Amy. He wanted to play the role
of gallant protector while enjoying her laughter, admiring her creativity, and
exploring all the facets she hid from the world. And the only way he could do
that was if they had no ties. He’d learned that lesson the hard way.

“We have two choices,” he said into her ear, cupping his
hands around her breasts and playing with her aroused nipples. “We can put on
the bathing suits waiting for us and enjoy the romantic grotto, or we can slip
on our robes and go up to my suite.” He nibbled on her ear to encourage the
latter choice.

“We can’t just stay here?” she replied, scorching his chest
with soft kisses. “We haven’t finished the strawberries or champagne.”

“I’ll have them sent up to us.” Not waiting for her
decision, he rose from the water with Amy wrapped around him. If he didn’t get
out right then, he wouldn’t be able to walk.

Walking didn’t matter after all. She fastened her mouth to
his, wrapped her legs around his hips, and within minutes, he had her beneath
him on the cot.

With the cinnamon scent of roses filling their heads and the
steam from the bath enveloping them, they sated the frustrations of the past
weeks, oblivious to all but sensation.

* * *

Sheets like silk slid along Zack’s skin as he turned to
reach for the warmth he’d cuddled all night.

She wasn’t there. He groaned into his pillow.

He could feel the glare of sunlight against his eyelids, but
he left them closed, preferring to listen for telltale sounds that would give him
an indication of what to expect. He was accustomed to waking alone, but he was
abnormally disappointed to do so this morning.

One little night should not be so dangerous.

Perhaps Amy was the wiser of the two of them. They should
not let themselves get used to cuddling or expecting romance.

A door clicked, and he lifted one eyelid to peer toward the
bathroom, praying that its door was the one he heard and not the one to the
suite. The bathroom door was wide open, and Amy wasn’t in sight.

Panic rising, he flipped over to observe the other side of
the room.

Looking adorable in the short-waisted jacket and draped
skirt she’d worn to work yesterday, Amy stood beside a table tray containing
hot dishes, teapots, and a pitcher of juice. At his movement, she poured a
glass of juice and brought it to the bed.

“I only have the weekend to work on the house. Hurry up,
sleepyhead, it’s time to get moving.”

“
Incredible
!” he
muttered to himself as he threw off the bedcovers and ignored her offering of
juice. Stark naked and still half aroused, Zack stalked across the carpet to
snatch a pastry from the tray. It wasn’t a substitute for the sweetness of
woman that he preferred. “You are the least romantic woman in the world!”

Even as he bit into the pastry, he was startled to realize
he didn’t mind that she wasn’t romantic. This was pure Amy smiling back at him
in the mirror, undeterred by his reaction. Here stood the practical woman who
disguised the seductress underneath — the seductress only he knew.

With Amy, he didn’t have to be charming. In return, she
didn’t have to play at being what she wasn’t to entice him. He loved just
watching happiness radiate from her.

“Said the grasshopper to the ant,” she replied tartly, as
only Amy could do and not give off rancor. “It was your idea to shop.”

“Not at the crack of dawn.” His body ached for more
lovemaking before returning to the grim realities of her world, and he wasn’t
ready to let her win this argument. “There is a reason for weekends.”

“Of course! Weekends are for doing everything a working
mother can’t get done during the week,” she replied as if he were simpleminded.

Zack swung around and caught her openly admiring his
physique, and he had to slam his libido to a halt and rethink. She obviously
wanted him, just as much as he wanted her, but did a hint of wariness linger
behind her admiration? That she still doubted him hurt, and it shouldn’t. He
knew she was the settling down kind and needed to be wary.

Why was he the one resenting that Amy was headed back to her
life as if this were a casual affair? As he usually did.

“I work hard and I play hard. That does not make me a
grasshopper,” he said gruffly, grappling with his odd resentment.

“So do I,” she replied. “But my idea of playing is with my
new house. And since that was the purported reason for my coming here, you
shouldn’t be surprised if that’s what I want to do.”

He wanted to stage a scene where they either both walked off
in a huff or ended up in bed again. That was normal in the world he’d occupied
these last years.

He was tired of the scenes, he realized. He was tired of
waking up in strange beds to women he didn’t even like.

He liked Amy, in his bed and out of it, even when she was at
her most exasperating, as she was now. She was running from him because she was
scared and testing his staying power.

He didn’t entirely know what to do about it. Not yet. He
needed to go home and set his head straight. Was that how Amy felt, too? No
wonder she was keeping her distance.

Thunderstruck by the realization that he could have a woman
he enjoyed beyond sex, he almost dropped into a nearby chair.

It would appear that they might be on the verge of a real
relationship — whatever that might be. He didn’t know what to do about it. Only
one thing was certain — he had just gone beyond fighting it.

Was that how Amy felt? As if she’d been smacked on the head
by a two-by-four and knocked under a steamroller? He would have to sort through
the maze of that possibility as soon as he picked his rolling head up off the
floor and set it on straight. He knew what “relationship” meant to Amy.

He was only mildly terrified and not quite shaking in his
boots. Yet.

For the moment, he must deal with the impossible female
waiting for his response. She was tapping her foot and starting to frown.

Zack miraculously discovered a desire to knock down ceilings
and paint walls.

“Sit. Eat,” he commanded. “I will shower. You will not run
away.” Smiling broadly, he planted a kiss on her cheek — anything more and he’d
have her undressed in seconds — and strode off to the shower whistling.

Amy held a hand to her cheek like an infatuated teenager and
tried not to melt through the floor as Zack’s beautifully muscular ass
disappeared into the bathroom.

She’d been doing fine until that confident gleam had
returned to his eye, and he’d started giving orders. She’d felt very
woman-of-the-world climbing out of bed, washing, and dressing while a handsome
man slept sprawled across the bed they’d made love in. She’d thought ordering
room service on her own a brilliant idea to establish her independence and the
casualness of their relationship.

It was one thing to look to Zack for a job. That was
business. But depending on him to feed her and plan her time off, that was
scarily intimate and spawned thoughts of planning days around him….

And mornings.

She’d faltered there for a minute when he’d actually sounded
hurt and uncertain. He was the experienced one, wasn’t he? She was the one who
should expect more of an affair, right? Which was why she had to prove she
didn’t expect anything.

Now she was just plain confused. This was the reason she had
resisted the idea of an affair for so long. She couldn’t separate sex from
commitment. And commitment with jet-setting Zack was out of the question.

She finished her glass of orange juice and poured tea. The
kitchen apparently already knew Zack’s requirements, because they’d sent up a
real teapot and real tea leaves instead of hot water and herbal tea bags. She
nibbled pastry and listened to him shower and was relieved she was dressed so
she wasn’t tempted to join him for a repeat of last night.